


Astounding X-Men, vol. 1, #003: We'll Always Have Cuba, Darling

by Murf1307



Series: Astounding X-Men! [3]
Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Beach Divorce, Cuban Missile Crisis, Gen, I honestly love how many tags there are pertaining to this part of the story, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-30
Updated: 2016-06-30
Packaged: 2018-07-19 04:08:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7344187
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Murf1307/pseuds/Murf1307
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>On a beach in Cuba, history shifts, loyalties are tested, and lines in the sand are drawn.  Raven makes a choice that she knows she will never be able to take back.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Astounding X-Men, vol. 1, #003: We'll Always Have Cuba, Darling

**Author's Note:**

> Look out, this one has a variant cover! Additionally, sometime in the next week, I'll be writing a missing scene -- what happened in the submarine -- and posting that as a sort of 'postscript' for this storyline.

  The team is up in the jet almost before Raven can blink.  Her gut twists when she looks toward the   nose of the plane and sees Hank, newly blue, and wonders if that's her fault.  

  Then, the plane lifts off.

  It should take longer to get to Cuba, she knows, but she tries not to think about that as she closes her eyes and considers what's going to happen.

  She knows, sure as anything, that someone is going to wind up dead today.  It's probably going to be Shaw, and she isn't at all ashamed of the swoop of pleasure that thought gives her.  Shaw's done enough -- even Charles is ready, she hopes, to kill this man.

  Erik doesn't believe it, she knows -- he told her, last night, that Charles had said something about peace, and Erik's opinion that peace isn't an option on a day like today.

  Peace has never been an option, she thinks.

  She's done it Charles's way, hiding and pretending to be normal, covering up her true self.  Her body, the fact of it.

  She's not going to do that anymore.

  They're above the boats, now, and she looks out the porthole of the jet, seeing these enormous warships rendered tiny underneath them.

  "They're not here," Charles says, almost despairing.  

  "Underwater, they must be underwater."  Erik unstraps himself and turns to Hank.  "Please tell me this thing has sonar."

  Hank shakes his head.  "No, that's the one thing it _doesn't_  have."

  "Great, we've got no sonar," Moira says, sighing.  

  Sean shakes his head.  "Yes we do."  He looks around at everyone else, and his meaning is clear.

  Darwin's the first one to nod.  He's become the unofficial 'field leader' -- she remembers a lot of nights on the couch chatting with Alex while Darwin, Erik, and Charles were holed up in the study, strategizing.

This is what that strategy comes to, now.

Sean unclips himself from his harness.  He's wearing a glider, now, and Raven wonders what it must be like to fly.  The thought is a quick one as Sean sets up and drops, screaming, to the ocean.

From there, it's more waiting until Sean comes back.  He gives the information to Charles, who gives it to Erik, and then Erik is shimmying down onto the landing gear of the jet with an outstretched hand.

Erik pulls the submarine up.  

And then everything goes to hell.

* * *

_Raven, make sure no one enters that submarine_ , Charles had said, and the words rattle in her as she watches Hank and the red devil tangle.  

Darwin's disappeared into the belly of the submarine with Erik, and Raven wishes she knew what's going on inside, but here she is, guarding it like she knows at all what she's doing.

Hank is starting to flag, and the devil is winning.  What was his name?

"Azazel," she says, shifting into Shaw's face and stepping out from behind some debris.

He buys it, and it gives Hank the second of advantage he needs.

She shifts back, and goes back to waiting. 

* * *

  Everything changes when Shaw's corpse floats out of the ruined submarine.

  There's no sign of Darwin, either, as Erik floats out behind the body.

  "Brothers and sisters, this is not the time for infighting."  Erik comes to rest on the sand, and Shaw's body crumples.

  Raven's not sure she's ever seen anything more beautiful than this moment.

_Peace was never an option_ , whisper the remembered words in the back of her head, what Erik told her only last night when he made _her_  feel beautiful for the first time in her life.

  "The real enemy is out there!"  Erik gestures to the confused warships out in the water.  "We must come together to protect our own, while we still can."

  "Erik!" Charles says, sounding desperate.  "We _can't_  make ourselves the enemy today.  Shaw has already done enough."

_Don't let him take you too,_  is the unspoken addition.  Raven doesn't think Charles added it, but she knows him too well to not know what he means.  Twenty years will do that to a person, she supposes.

  "Do you really think they will allow us to stay alive, Charles?  They're right to be afraid."

  Raven watches, transfixed.  Moira has scrambled to the radio, but it does nothing as the ships across the water all, en masse, fire their missiles.

  Impending death has never felt like a religious experience before.

  This time, she's not afraid, because the missiles freeze in the air -- Erik, of course, always Erik.

  He turns the missiles around.

  "Erik, please."  Charles's desperation is at a fever pitch, now.

  Good.  Let _him_  be afraid for once, instead of the rest of them.  He knew what Erik was when he pulled him out of the water, just like he knows what she is, too.

He just thought he could change them.  He always thinks he can change people.

And sure, sometimes he can.

But that isn't going to save them today.

"There are good men on those ships, Erik.  They're only following orders."

Erik's head turns, and he looks almost serene.  Like his fury has tempered down to steel, like the whole of him has become solidified into one purpose, the _only_  purpose.

Ensuring their survival.

"I've been at the mercy of men just following orders," he says.  "Never again."

And he lets the missiles fly.

Raven steels herself for the explosion, for a midday sunrise, the dawn of a war and a new world.  She realizes it's one she's willing to fight for.

Someday, people like her will be safe.

People like Erik will make sure of that.

" _No!_ " Charles cries out, and barrels into Erik, and both of them fall to the sand.

As if to match them, the missiles fall out of the sky, exploding as they go.

No sunrise.

Raven watches, transfixed by the fight.  She knows, sure as anything, that the thing that will not survive today, more than Shaw hasn't, is the status quo.

The fate of mutants everywhere rests on a wrestling match on a beach in Cuba, between two men who would kill or die for each other.  The attempted-martyr who never seems to actually suffer, and the soldier who would be a priest of tomorrow: together, they were something inexplicable.

Today, they're the hinge on which the story turns.

In the midst of it, there's a scraping sound, a screech and tear, and Raven looks away from the fight to find the wall of the sub buckling further.  A moment later, it cracks open and Darwin emerges.

He looks furious, but determined.

And then come the gunshots.  

Raven whips around to see Moira firing at Erik, and he's standing, having won the fight with Charles, who is coming to his knees and rising to his feet, he's about to turn and speak --

And one of the bullets Erik bats aside finds a home in Charles Xavier.

Charles falls forward into the sand.

Raven's hands are at her mouth, shock suffusing her.  She watches, unable to do anything.

She's always unable to do anything, she realizes, and the thought freezes her as she watches Darwin cross the sand as Erik rushes to pull Charles's wounded body into his lap.

She's not privy to the exchange -- no one is; even Darwin hangs back, and Moira, too.  The rest of the boys are clumped together, each in one way or another out of commission -- Sean is cradling his arm, and there's a bloody cut on Alex's chest, behind where the focus plate used to be.  Hank is guarding them, it seems, as transfixed as she is by the horror down the beach.

Erik reaches out to try and strangle Moira; Darwin rushes forward and rips the dog tags from her neck as Charles pulls Erik closer and says something that makes Erik go utterly still.

Darwin stays between Moira and Erik until Erik rises from the sand.  Moira rushes forward and takes up the position Erik left, and Erik approaches Darwin.

When he speaks, he's looking at Darwin, but speaking to all of them.

"We're at a crossroads, we mutants.  We can stand with the humans who, in fear, will try to destroy us when they can no longer deny we exist, or we can fight to carve out a place where we are safe from the threat they will pose us."  Erik pauses, for effect.  "I cannot promise safety for the people who come with me, but I _can_ promise freedom."

Raven is already on her feet; Shaw's people are assembling at Erik's side.

This is where Erik belongs, she realizes: in another life, he'd be a conqueror.  In this one, he leads a different kind of army.

And she's going to join him.  She _has_  to.

But first, she turns to Charles.  Twenty years, for all their problems, mean she owes him that, at least.

She kneels at Charles's side as, a little ways off, Darwin extends his hand to Angel.

Angel didn't take it then, and Raven had worried for it.

Today, she does, and a pang of pain rips through Raven at the impending separation.

But that's for later.  Now, she has Charles's hand in hers.

"Go," Charles says, his breathing labored.  "It's what you want."

"I thought you promised not to read my mind."  It's the old accusation, and Raven is surprised by how vehement it sounds, now.

"I have promised you a great many things, I'm afraid."

He pulls her hand to his mouth and kisses the back of her glove.  It's as close to a benediction as she'll ever get from Charles, and she stands.

She walks to Erik's side, and he takes her hand.  A few yards off, Angel stands with Darwin, and Raven sees the boys struggling to their feet a ways beyond that.

She can't look back at Moira and Charles.  She knows she doesn't have to.

Then, the world dissolves in sulfur smoke.


End file.
